Fire academy sets teens on right path

Education: Hart district ROP helps students decide if career is right for them

ROP fire trainees Pablo Lagman, 16, right, Alex Martin, 18, take their breathing apparatuses from a storage unit during training exercises at the William S. Hart Regional Occupational Program Fire Academy in Santa Clarita on Saturday. The program is meant to help high school students decide if a career in firefighting is the right choice.

There was a time five years ago when the William S. Hart Regional Occupational Program Fire Academy operated out of a pickup truck with no hoses, no water and just a firefighter with a vision and a couple of high school kids willing to listen.

Now that ROP academy has established itself as the go-to place for serious young firefighters.

It now has hoses — donated by fire stations, turned out after 10 years of use.

It has a mock wooden house used for training, a donated fire engine, generators and tools donated by fire departments in Verdugo and Beverly Hills.

Most importantly, says Kelly Chulick, master chief in charge of training, it has the respect of local recruiting fire departments who see academy graduates as confident, knowledgeable, hard-working and respectful young firefighting candidates.

Last year, the academy videotaped interviews with parents of academy graduates.

“Oh, my God, the statements coming back brought me to tears,” Chulick said. “They’re going ‘You don’t know what you’ve done. I think our whole family was saved by the fact that he came to this program and found himself because we were having all kinds of trouble.’

“Now, he knows what to do,” he said. “You could see from the look in their eyes.”

Firefighting disciplineOn Saturday morning, at the end of a cul-de-sac on Spirit Drive, outside the open doors of the warehouse used by the William S. Hart Union High School District to store textbooks, desks and now, a growing mountain of donated fire equipment, a cluster of young men are gathered around a picnic table apparently tying and untying ropes.

Dressed in blue T-shirts and baggy bright-yellow, firefighting pants, they address each of their three teachers with “sir” every time they speak.

Inside the warehouse, about 25 young men and at least one young woman with red hair, are lined up rows in front of a teacher putting on layers of protective clothing.

They’re listening to Deputy Chief Brad Brewster bark orders.

They answer in unison. They’re attentive and when they turn to do something, they run to do it.

Academy students take part in 180 hours of hands-on training for one semester. If they complete the course (and most do), they go on to the second, more advanced class.

“Hardly anyone drops out,” Chulick said.

“We tell them at the beginning, this is a trial period. This is where you learn if you really want to be a firefighter or not.”

The firefighting academy accepts students already enrolled in their junior and senior years of high school, no one over 19.

In five years, he’s watched close to 1000 teenagers grow to be well-trained, confident prospective firefighters.

The days of young people graduating from high school, reading a newspaper and responding to an ad to become a firefighter are over, he said.